Part 27 (1/2)
By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries, which we tasted Crossing, in your barks, the main; By our sufferings, since you brought us To the man-degrading mart, All-sustained by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart:
Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason you shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger, Than the colour of our kind.
Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all, your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours.
This little piece Cowper presented in ma.n.u.script to some of his friends in London; and these, conceiving it to contain a powerful appeal in behalf of the injured Africans, joined in printing it. Having ordered it on the finest hot-pressed paper, and folded it up in a small and neat form, they gave it the printed t.i.tle of _A Subject for Conversation at the Tea-table_. After this, they sent many thousand copies of it in franks into the country. From one it spread to another, till it travelled almost over the whole island. Falling at length into the hands of the musician, it was set to music; and it then found its way into the streets, both of the metropolis and of the country, where it was sung as a ballad; and where it gave a plain account of the subject, with an appropriate feeling, to those who heard it.
Nor was the philanthropy of the late Mr. Wedgewood less instrumental in turning the popular feeling in our favour. He made his own manufactory contribute to this end. He took the seal of the committee, as exhibited in Chap. XX., for his model; and he produced a beautiful cameo, of a less size, of which the ground was a most delicate white, but the Negro, who was seen imploring compa.s.sion in the middle of it, was in his own native colour. Mr. Wedgewood made a liberal donation of these, when finished, among his friends. I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself. They, to whom they were sent, did not lay them up in their cabinets, but gave them away likewise. They were soon, like _The Negro's Complaint_, in different parts of the kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fas.h.i.+on, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.
I shall now only state that the committee took as members within its own body, in the period of time which is included in this chapter, the Reverend Mr. Ormerod, chaplain to the Bishop of London, and Captain James Bowen, of the royal navy; that they elected the Honourable Nathaniel Curzon (afterwards Lord Scarsdale), Dr. Frossard, of Lyons, and Benjamin Garlike, Esq., then secretary to the English emba.s.sy at the Hague, honorary and corresponding members; and that they concluded their annual labours with a suitable report, in which they noticed the extraordinary efforts of our opponents to injure our cause in the following manner:--”In the progress of this business, a powerful combination of interest has been excited against us. The African trader, the planter, and the West India merchant, have united their forces to defend the fortress, in which their supposed treasures lie. Vague calculations and false alarms have been thrown out to the public, in order to show that the const.i.tution, and even the existence, of this free and opulent nation depend on its depriving the inhabitants of a foreign country of those rights and of that liberty which we ourselves so highly and so justly prize. Surely, in the nature of things, and in the order of Providence, it cannot be so. England existed as a great nation long before the African commerce was known amongst us, and it is not to acts of injustice and violence that she owes her present rank in the scale of nations.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
--Continuation from July, 1790, to July, 1791.--Author travels again throughout the kingdom; object of his journey.--Motion in the House of Commons to resume the hearing of evidence in favour of the abolition; list of all those examined on this side of the question; machinations of interested persons, and cruel circ.u.mstances of the times previously to the day of decision.--Motion at length made for stopping all further importation of Slaves from Africa; debates upon it; motion lost.--Resolutions of the committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.--Establishment of the Sierra Leone Company.
It was a matter of deep affliction to us to think, that the crimes and sufferings inseparable from the Slave Trade were to be continued to another year. And yet it was our duty, in the present moment, to acquiesce in the postponement of the question. This postponement was not now for the purpose of delay, but of securing victory. The evidence, on the side of the abolition, was, at the end of the last session, but half finished. It was impossible, for the sake of Africa, that we could have then closed it. No other opportunity might offer in parliament for establis.h.i.+ng an indelible record in her favour, if we were to neglect the present. It was our duty, therefore, even to wait to complete it, and to procure such a body of evidence, as should not only bear us out in the approaching contest, but such as, if we were to fail, would bear out our successors also. It was possible, indeed, if the inhabitants of our islands were to improve in civilization, that the poor slaves might experience gradually an improved treatment with it; and so far testimony now might not be testimony for ever; but it was utterly impossible, while the Slave Trade lasted, and the human pa.s.sion continued to be the same, that there should be any change for the better in Africa; or that any modes, less barbarous, should come into use for procuring slaves.
Evidence, therefore, if once collected on this subject, would be evidence for posterity. In the midst of these thoughts another journey occurred to me as necessary for this purpose; and I prayed, that I might have strength to perform it in the most effectual manner; and that I might be daily impressed, as I travelled along, with the stimulating thought, that the last hope for millions might possibly rest upon my own endeavours.
The committee highly approved of this journey; Mr. Wilberforce saw the absolute necessity of it also, and had prepared a number of questions, with great ingenuity, to be put to such persons as might have information to communicate. These I added to those in the tables, which have been already mentioned, and they made together a valuable collection on the subject.
This tour was the most vexatious of any I had yet undertaken; many still refused to come forward to be examined, and some on the most frivolous pretences, so that I was disgusted, as I journeyed on, to find how little men were disposed to make sacrifices for so great a cause. In one part of it I went over nearly two thousand miles, receiving repeated refusals; I had not secured one witness within this distance; this was truly disheartening. I was subject to the whims and caprice of those whom I solicited on these occasions[A]; to these I was obliged to accommodate myself. When at Edinburgh, a person who could have given me material information declined seeing me, though he really wished well to the cause; when I had returned southward as far as York, he changed his mind, and he would then see me; I went back that I might not lose him.
When I arrived, he would give me only private information. Thus I travelled, backwards and forwards, four hundred miles to no purpose. At another place a circ.u.mstance almost similar happened, though with a different issue. I had been for two years writing about a person, whose testimony was important. I had pa.s.sed once through the town in which he lived, but he would not then see me; I pa.s.sed through it now, but no entreaties of his friends could make him alter his resolution. He was a man highly respectable as to situation in life, but of considerable vanity. I said therefore to my friend, on leaving the town, You may tell him that I expect to be at Nottingham in a few days, and though it be a hundred and fifty miles distant, I will even come back to see him if he will dine with me on my return. A letter from my friend announced to me, when at Nottingham, that his vanity had been so gratified by the thought of a person coming expressly to visit him from such a distance, that he would meet me according to my appointment; I went back; we dined together; he yielded to my request; I was now repaid, and I returned towards Nottingham in the night. These circ.u.mstances I mention, and I feel it right to mention them, that the reader may be properly impressed with the great difficulties we found in collecting a body of evidence in comparison with our opponents. They ought never to be forgotten; for if with the testimony, picked up as it were under all these disadvantages, we carried our object against those who had almost numberless witnesses to command, what must have been the merits of our cause! No person can indeed judge of the severe labour and trials in these journeys. In the present, I was out four months; I was almost over the whole island; I intersected it backwards and forwards both in the night and in the day; I travelled nearly seven thousand miles in this time, and I was able to count upon twenty new and willing evidences.
Having now accomplished my object, Mr. Wilberforce moved on the 4th of February in the House of Commons, that a committee be appointed to examine further witnesses in behalf of the abolition of the Slave Trade, This motion was no sooner made, than Mr. Cawthorne rose, to our great surprise, to oppose it. He took upon himself to decide that the House had heard evidence enough. This indecent motion was not without its advocates. Mr. Wilberforce set forth the injustice of this attempt, and proved, that out of eighty-one days which had been given up to the hearing of evidence, the witnesses against the abolition had occupied no less than fifty-seven. He was strenuously supported by Mr. Burke, Mr.
Martin, and other respectable members. At length the debate ended in favour of the original motion, and a committee was appointed accordingly.
The examinations began again on February 7th, and continued till April 5th, when they were finally closed. In this, as in the former session, Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. William Smith princ.i.p.ally conducted them; and indeed it was necessary that they should have been present at these times; for it is perhaps difficult to conceive the illiberal manner in which our witnesses were treated by those on the other side of the question. Men who had left the trade upon principle, and who had come forward, against their apparent interest, to serve the cause of humanity and justice, were looked upon as mercenaries and culprits, or as men of doubtful and suspicious character; they were brow-beaten; unhandsome questions were put to them; some were kept for four days under examination. It was however highly to their honour that they were found in no one instance to prevaricate, nor to waver as to the certainty of their facts.
But this treatment, hard as it was for them to bear, was indeed good for the cause; for, coming thus pure out of the fire, they occasioned their own testimony, when read, to bear stronger marks of truth than that of the generality of our opponents; nor was it less superior when weighed by other considerations. For the witnesses, against the abolition were princ.i.p.ally interested; they, who were not, had been hospitably received at the planters' tables. The evidence, too, which they delivered, was almost wholly negative. They had not seen such and such evils; but this was no proof that the evils did not exist. The witnesses, on the other hand, who came up in favour of the abolition, had no advantage in making their several a.s.sertions. In some instances they came up against their apparent interest, and, to my knowledge, suffered persecution for so doing. The evidence also which they delivered was of a positive nature.
They gave an account of specific evils, which had come under their own eyes; these evils were never disproved; they stood therefore on a firm basis, as on a tablet of bra.s.s. Engraved there in affirmative characters, a few of them were of more value than all the negative and airy testimony which had been advanced on the other side of the question.
That the public may judge, in some measure, of the respectability of the witnesses in favour of the abolition, and that they may know also to whom Africa is so much indebted for her deliverance, I shall subjoin their names in the three following lists. The first will contain those who were examined by the privy council only; the second those who were examined by the privy council and the House of Commons also; and the third those who were examined-by the House of Commons only.
LIST I.
LIST II.
LIST III.
The evidence having been delivered on both sides, and then printed, it was judged expedient by Mr. Wilberforce, seeing that it filled three folio volumes, to abridge it. This abridgement was made by the different friends of the cause. William Burgh, Esq., of York; Thomas Babington, Esq., of Rothley Temple; the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge; Mr.
Campbell Haliburton, of Edinburgh; George Harrison, with one or two others of the committee, and myself, were employed upon it. The greater share, however, of the labour, fell upon Dr. d.i.c.kson. That no misrepresentation of any person's testimony might be made, Matthew Montagu, Esq., and the Honourable E.J. Elliott, members of Parliament, undertook to compare the abridged ma.n.u.scripts with the original text, and to strike out or correct whatever they thought to be erroneous, and to insert whatever they thought to have been omitted. The committee for the abolition, when the work was finished, printed it at their own expense, Mr. Wilberforce then presented it to the House of Commons, as a faithful abridgement of the whole evidence. Having been received as such, under the guarantee of Mr. Montague and Mr. Elliott, the committee sent it to every individual member of that House.
The book having been thus presented, and a day fixed for the final determination of the question, our feelings became almost insupportable; for we had the mortification to find, that our cause was going down in estimation, where it was then most important that it should have increased in favour. Our opponents had taken advantage of the long delay which the examination of evidence had occasioned, to prejudice the minds of many of the members of the House of Commons against us. The old arguments of emanc.i.p.ation, ma.s.sacre, ruin, and indemnification, had been kept up; but, as the day of final decision approached, they had been increased. Such was our situation at this moment, when the current was turned still more powerfully against us by the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the times. It was, indeed, the misfortune of this great cause to be a.s.sailed by every weapon which could be turned against it. At this time, Thomas Paine had published his _Rights of Man_. This had been widely circulated. At this time, also, the French revolution had existed nearly two years. The people of England had seen, during this interval, a government as it were dissected. They had seen an old const.i.tution taken down, and a new one put up, piece by piece, in its stead. The revolution, therefore, in conjunction with the book in question, had had the effect of producing dissatisfaction among thousands; and this dissatisfaction was growing, so as to alarm a great number of persons of property in the kingdom, as well as the government itself. Now will it be believed that our opponents had the injustice to lay hold of these circ.u.mstances, at this critical moment, to give a death-blow to the cause of the abolition? They represented the committee, though it had existed before the French revolution, or the _Rights of Man_ were heard of, as a nest of Jacobins; and they held up the cause, sacred as it was, and though it had the support of the minister, as affording an opportunity of meeting for the purpose of overthrowing the state. Their cry succeeded. The very book of the abridgment of the evidence was considered by many members as poisonous as that of the _Rights of Man_.
It was too profane for many of them to touch; and they who discarded it, discarded the cause also.
But these were not the only circ.u.mstances which were used as means, at this critical moment, to defeat us. News of the revolution, which had commenced in St. Domingo, in consequence of the disputes between the whites and the people of colour, had, long before this, arrived in England. The horrible scenes which accompanied it, had been frequently published as so many arguments against our cause. In January, new insurrections were announced as having happened in Martinique. The negroes there were described as armed, and the planters as having abandoned their estates for fear of ma.s.sacre. Early in the month of March, insurrections in the smaller French islands were reported. Every effort was then made to represent these as the effects of the new principles of liberty, and of the cry for abolition. But what should happen, just at this moment, to increase the clamour against us? Nothing less than an insurrection in Dominica.--Yes!--An insurrection in a British island. This was the very event for our opponents. ”All the predictions of the planters had now become verified. The horrible ma.s.sacres were now realizing at home.” To give this news still greater effect, a meeting of our opponents was held at the London Tavern. By a letter read there, it appeared that ”the ruin of Dominica was now at hand.” Resolutions were voted, and a memorial presented to government, ”immediately to despatch such a military force to the different islands, as might preserve the whites from destruction, and keep the negroes in subjection during the present critical state of the slave bill.” This alarm was kept up till the 7th of April, when another meeting took place, to receive the answer of government to the memorial. It was there resolved that, ”as it was too late to send troops to the islands, the best way of preserving them would be to bring the question of the Slave Trade to an immediate issue; and that it was the duty of the government, if they regarded the safety of the islands, to oppose the abolition of it.” Accounts of all these proceedings were inserted in the public papers. It is needless to say that they were injurious to our cause.
Many looked upon the abolitionists as monsters. They became also terrified themselves. The idea with these was, that unless the discussion on this subject was terminated, all would be lost. Thus, under a combination of effects, arising from the publication of the _Rights of Man_, the rise and progress of the French revolution, and the insurrections of the negroes in the different islands, no one of which events had anything to do with the abolition of the Slave Trade, the current was turned against us; and in this unfavourable frame of mind many members of parliament went into the House, on the day fixed for the discussion, to discharge their duty with respect to this great question.
On the 18th of April, Mr. Wilberforce made his motion. He began by expressing a hope, that the present debate, instead of exciting asperity and confirming prejudice, would tend to produce a general conviction of the truth of what in fact was incontrovertible; that the abolition of the Slave Trade was indispensably required of them, not only by morality and religion, but by sound policy. He stated that he should argue the matter from evidence. He adverted to the character, situation, and means of information of his own witnesses; and having divided his subject into parts, the first of which related to the manner of reducing the natives of Africa to a state of slavery, he handled it in the following manner:--